Page 20 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

Despite every appearance to the opposite, George Wickham was a man who at last had the awakening of hope.

Mrs. Phillp’s maid had brought out candles that were set on every table as the spring sun set. The cards were spread in front of them all, and Wickham was frowning.

He really had not brought any further money with him to this game, largely because he had been afraid that if he brought more of his slender salary, he would have lost it.

He hated that.

Damn and curse Colonel Fitzwilliam. May his mother suffer from dysentery and die from diarrhea.

Captain Denny laughed as he watched Wickham stare at the current stakes in the pot, “Cash out, Wickham! Cash out.”

The other five people around one of the tables in Mrs. Phillips’s card party snickered.

They laughed at him!

Despicable, disgusting dandelions.

Wickham smiled smoothly, his eyes crinkled with a real smile that filled his face, but did not touch either soul or heart. “Ah, play is turning rich for me, perhaps I’ll need to bow out.”

Carter laughed again. “Cash Out Wicky.”

All of them should be blown away with a puff of air — even the Bennet girl, Lydia, who kept making those eyes at him. He’d strangle her too if he had his way.

His despised new moniker, ‘ash Out Wicky, had been the consequence with the greatest permanency of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s fetid denunciation.

At least over time the neighborhood, society, and his fellow officers had forgotten that they were supposed to dislike him and distrust him in general. They only distrusted him with money.

And the wine and melted cheese on toast that Mrs. Phillips served was far better than the fare he could afford for himself on his pathetic officer’s salary.

The young Bennet girl who was not properly out but still allowed to attend events at her aunt’s house smiled at him with that little glow that Wickham feared would reveal matters to even her incredibly dense aunt, uncle and mother. “Oh, la, what a joke! But I’ll lend you a guinea.” Her voice turned artfully, and obviously, in Wickham’s mind, sly. “I trust you to give a good return.”

He knew that she referred to the kisses they’d shared. Fortunately, it seemed as though nobody else had any notion of their connection.

The second heiress he’d finagled into agreeing to elope with him was no dead and floppy bass when he kissed her. Jove, he pitied the man Georgiana would marry one day.

Lydia had been eager for his lips, his tongue, and his hand on her breasts.

He’d have been able to take her if he hadn’t been the fool, and set their hidden meeting in a place that was still too public for such intercourse.

“If you want to lose your money to Cash Out Wicky,” Denny took a gulp from his wine, “you’ve purse enough.”

They all put up their stakes, with Lydia staking for Wickham as well as herself, and then flipped over their cards.

Lydia whooped as she won the set, and she giggled at Wickham, “The money is mine again, but you still owe me that return.”

And she actually winked.

In front of all the soldiers around the table.

This girl, in the midst of her first — so far as Wickham knew at least — intrigue had no sense of discretion or subtlety.

If he’d not convinced her that they should settle matters and run away to Gretna Green nearly immediately — tomorrow in fact — discovery would have been inevitable, quick, and unfortunate for all involved.

“Ho! Ho!” Carter snorted, “Has Cash Out Wickham gained an enthusiast?”

Lydia smirked at him, pretending to be an older, mature and knowing woman, when she really was barely more than a child. Sitting tall she lifted up her glass of wine and primly sipped it, before she looked at Wickham again.

Those eyes made him start to go hard again. She was exactly the sort of woman he’d seduced so many times — exceedingly young, a shapely bit of muslin, a bit stupid, and very eager for a lark and to know what all the fuss about men and women was about.

Wickham considered himself a very successful man. At least four of his children lived in the world, and he had wholly succeeded at not placing any of them upon his own charge.

He’d had a bit of success even in Meryton — though in general with women married or widowed, rather than the young virgin maidens that any sensible man wanted to despoil. All the women he’d lain with in Meryton had been unsatisfied lustful sinners who'd been promised that he was dissolute and maybe discreet by Colonel Fitzwilliam’s speech.

Little gifts from his amoureux were the only reason that he’d had the bare means to keep his dress in an almost, but not quite decent measure in this bored awful damned town.

Smooth silk handkerchiefs that were a delight to run one’s finger over, a cold gold watch that hung from his pocket, the silver cufflinks — little signs of prosperity Wickham needed .

Wickham — or The Wickham — as he often referred in his own mind to the personality he donned when seducing women, looked back at Lydia with a seductive grin that he showed her for just a second. Enough to make her flush, but to keep from being objectionably obvious to the other persons around.

“You loaned a guinea! There is still enough from that for more play,” Wickham replied. “I’ll win everything back from you, and then you’ll owe me a return.”

“You won’t!” Denny slapped Wickham on the shoulder. He laughed. “Cash Out Wicky is a fine, fashionable, friendly fellow. But a card talent he is not.”

“I play cards perfectly well.”

“Miss Lydia, if I’d been a nearly penniless fellow, like this fellow,” Denny paused to hiccup out a faint stench of the small beer he preferred to wine, “I’d not play cards unless I could win more often than I lost.”

Lydia giggled. “I always win at cards.” She added stoutly, “I’d take all the allowance of the other girls at school, and they hated it, but then I’d buy everyone a perfectly ugly bonnet that we then took apart, and we would make it into something not too shameful to wear. So they forgave me. Except Ugly Elsie. But she was ugly, teeth too crooked, and skin too sallow. Even if her father was the brother of a baronet. Mrs. Castle always said it was impolite to win so much at cards. So this one time I told her that it was impolite to be such a sour apple, and she caned my hand so hard that it wouldn’t stop throbbing for a week.”

From her expression and laugh, this was clearly a joke to Lydia, and all the gentlemen at the table — she had of course contrived to be the only woman at a table full of officers — laughed with her.

This girl was as bursting from the seams as a slut milk maid with a need for fresh air, fresh exercise, and a man’s body to spread her legs.

Lydia Bennet’s flighty little mind might be the greatest piece of fortune that had ever fallen to Wickham’s lot.

Twenty thousand pounds.

It still wasn’t the thirty thousand from Georgiana Darcy that belonged to him by right.

Lydia was the sort of fool who he could convince to do anything once she thought herself to be in love.

And to his additional benefit, her father and Mr. Bingley seldom attended these card parties, and the members of her family who were here all liked him.

It had been the departure of that Miss Elizabeth Bennet — who never forgot to look at him with suspicious eyes, and who generally objected to his presence in company — that had given him this opportunity.

She would have been sufficiently suspicious to find out at least a hint of his scheme. There had even been some rumor about town that Colonel Fitzwilliam had admired her — but nothing had come of it.

But she was not here, and Wickham did not plan to wait.

Tomorrow!

A few words about how desperately in love with her he was, how he respected her too much to touch her without marriage, combined with Lydia’s rutting female desperation to find out what other sensations of slippery delight he could inspire, had been enough.

Tomorrow, the carriage would be ready, and she’d come out to him, and they’d rush off to Gretna Green, and he’d satisfy himself with her body repeatedly on the road, making it impossible for her family to say him nay, and then he’d take possession of all that sensual, sweet kissing money that she had in her dowry.

As the card party broke up, Wickham found a chance to whisper to her on the stairs, and to almost kiss her again.

She promised again, Tomorrow .

Shining eyes. A promising smile.

And after that he walked arm in arm with his bothersome brother officers, singing a stout marching song half drunkenly back to the rooms they shared.

Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules

Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these.

But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare.

With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadiers.

“Hehe,” Carter said as they undressed, and settled onto the chairs around the little table in the joined room. “Cash Out Wicky found one girl for whom his credit is good. That Bennet girl made cow eyes at you all night. Pity for you that Mr. Bennet is too sound of a fellow to ever let a worthless fellow like you marry her. Never thought I’d see a woman fool enough to have that much interest in you .”

A low rage burned in Wickham’s chest. The need to kick, bite, claw was a living thing.

He kept smiling, the smile going to his eyes.

Denny said, “The father decides. Way it is. Way it should be.”

“Eh.” Carter shook his head. “I shan’t confess to agreement. I always admire any Miss with the spirit to choose her own. Her life, she shouldn’t only worry about marrying the man who’ll make the father happiest. That is no profit to the daughter .”

“Some girl’s father disliked your estate?” Denny poked Carter.

“No, no. I can confess to no particular ill usage. I speak in generalities.”

After that they quieted down, the lantern was blown out, the other two went to their cramped little bedrooms, and Wickham stretched out his legs out on the divan in the sitting room that he rented for half the price of one of the actual rooms, and he tried to fall asleep.

He’d nearly left the regiment when Colonel Fitzwilliam denounced him. He knew Colonel Fitzwilliam had expected him to.

The militia, pathetic, small, purple bruised — Colonel Fitzwilliam wanted to rip another opportunity away.

Oh, he hated them. He hated them all.

George Wickham’s charming grin as he stared up in the dark at the crumpled little roof right above him was a rictus so wide that it hurt.

There had been no call for Colonel Fitzwilliam to insult him, scorn him, and attack him in such a way in front of the whole community, and his officers. He’d promised to not say anything about Georgiana, and he meant it.

Well he would have said something about her after Colonel Fitzwilliam had insulted him in such a harsh manner. In fact, Wickham had every right to challenge him to a duel. Some would say he ought to have.

Except…

The look in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyes had given him a cold shudder. A feeling had swept over him, like a premonition: One day, oh Wickham you fine charmer, one fine morning a little after dawn this man will kill you.

A silly nonsense of a thought. Of course Colonel Fitzwilliam would not kill him.

But every time he thought about the officer Wickham felt sick and cold with shivers.

The natural consequent of that event would have been if Wickham removed himself from the scene of his disgrace. Militia officers served at their own pleasure, and were able to bring such service to a cessation upon short notice — so long at least, as Boney didn’t actually land with a hundred regiments francais upon the white cliffs of Dover.

But…

There were three chief considerations which had led Wickham to prolong his connection with the regiment: Leaving immediately, while it was obvious to everyone that it had been Colonel Fitzwilliam who convinced him to go, grated against Wickham’s natural instinct to spite any man who spat upon him.

No!

He had done nothing wrong. They were the ones who had been bamboozled by the falsified references of a woman who leapt from her employment relationship with Darcy into the management of a bawdy house. In essence he had provided a kindness to Georgiana — some other gentleman who lacked his undoubtable virtues would have made love at her if he’d not been there to do it.

Nothing wrong.

It was for Colonel Fitzwilliam to leave the neighborhood if he wished to avoid Wickham, and not for Wickham to remove himself to avoid him.

The second consideration had been the simple delight he felt a week later in listening to the gossip about just what Mr. Darcy had really done to that Bingley chit before he’d cursed her as a slut.

Wickham managed to add a great many pieces of disreputable, and not necessarily accurate, information about Darcy into the general rumor mill — though he said nothing that even Colonel Fitzwilliam’s viciousness would treat as an excuse for murder.

The delightful scandal!

His name talked about, and talked about with scorn, laughter and amusement. Darcy being laughed at.

This was precisely the sort of situation that Darcy never seemed to enter into, and that in fact his general habit of life would lead him to make a studied effort to avoid.

Ha. Ha. Ha! Maybe there was justice in this world!

Except, of course, there was not.

He, Wickham, would have hacked off his arm to have an heiress worth twenty thousand pounds. His right arm.

That is of course if she offered sufficient appeal to the eye that his marriage to her would not lead to other gentlemen thinking less of him — but while he had not seen her before her attempt to seduce Darcy, everyone had agreed that Miss Bingley was a fine, elegant creature. Fashionable and ladylike, and the officers had generally agreed amongst themselves when no women were present, that even though she had a disdainful expression on her face when she spoke with them, none of them would have refused the opportunity to roll around on a sofa with her.

Wickham had seen her about town since she had taken a house in Meryton two months prior, and he had to agree with that general officerial judgement. He’d take her to bed with more than usual alacrity.

Such a prize!

Darcy. Damned two fortuned Darcy had not even deigned to care when such a creature threw herself at him.

It was therefore chiefly the third consolation that kept him in Meryton: The first day of exercises, when he ordered the enlisted cottager lads up and down in the march. The right to command them. To stand at the lead of a group, and to harangue anyone who did not show sufficient attention in the drill.

That thrill!

Women watched him with all admiration in their eyes, and he was able to command — like had always been his purpose and his right.

He was employed in a way a gentleman ought to be.

And the best part of the whole was that none of it was honest work.

Certainly marching up and down — especially now that the weather had turned hot — was a task to be completed. But Wickham’s fancy had not yet ceased to be delighted with being in charge of lesser and lower humans.

Or with the red coat, provided for by the purse of his majesty, and improved with what money and gifts Wickham had been able to finagle.

Not enough money of course.

He’d once had enough money. Four thousand pounds. In the extreme poverty he now suffered under — barely able to make a display of himself when it was his turn to provide for the officers mess, barely able to improve his clothes, unable to drink and lay about as he’d like — Wickham imagined that would have been enough money.

How had he managed to spend so much so quickly?

Four thousand pounds? How had any ordinary man contrived to spend such a fortune in only three years?

So he did not mind.

The regiment provided a little ready paid out on regular intervals, and he fulfilled his true purpose in life, leading others, and the friendship of the officers assuaged his sense of general ill use. That smile which had always been of the greatest service to him had not failed him here.

Eventually almost all the neighborhood had forgotten what Colonel Fitzwilliam accused him of. The men here did not despise him simply because one aristocratic officer — a man in the regulars — had declared that they should.

But he was still Cash Out Wicky:

“Ha, ha, ha! Course I can’t cover your portion of the cold cuts. Cash Out Wickham.”

“Ah, dear sir, I would very much desire to extend you a line of credit, but my present distressing circumstances make it impossible for me to serve your business on any lines but through the immediate receipt of cash.”

“Can you meet the bet? Cash out Wickham.”

Never once did anyone offer him even a tuppence of credit.

Not except for Lydia Bennet, and she wanted a tuppence of tupping in turn.

In London days, during his honest and honorable quest for the finest things in life that were oft denied to him, George Wickham had in the end failed to make payment of more than a thousand pounds of credit.

He could act to anyone like the wealthy, careless gentleman who would obviously be good for what he agreed to pay sooner or later.

Later.

Much much later.

He’d also then had enough money that he could pay enough, and often enough, that merchants trusted him, and let him go more deeply into debt than they would with someone who'd not proven his surety before. And he had aristocratic friends who would discourage them from bringing suit against him for his eventual failure to pay.

It had, further, been a general principle of Mr. Wickham’s to spread the largesse as widely as possible.

That is to say, the largesse which the world at large would heap upon his head. He offered no largesse to the world, if he could possibly avoid it, except the benefit they all gained from his simple existence.

He believed himself a blessing to the world — at least he had in those times when he had had so much money (and yet he had been convinced then that he was poor, and he had been so angry with Darcy for the way that he’d stolen his rightful inheritance).

In any case a cautious, careful, and considered control of how much he ought, in strict speaking terms, pay to any one merchant had ensured that no one with a secure enough position to risk offending Wickham’s friends would find it worth their while to prosecute him for non-payment, and toss, tie, and quarter him in Marshalsea until he became by some impossible alchemical transmutation, a worthy sort of gentleman who paid his debts.

None of that in Meryton!

Fuck Colonel Fitzwilliam.

If he could, he’d take a red hot poker from the fire, and burn it into the colonel’s cheeks, giggling while the skin sizzled.

Wickham was a disappointed man, and he must have pleasure lest the sensation of his disappointments overcome him.

But his luck had turned!

Tomorrow he would take Lady Lucky Lydia upon the road, and when their journey was done, he would never worry about money again.